With Democratic candidate Dylan Hewitt dropping out of the race last week, the field of Democrats seeking the 21st Congressional District seat has been culled to three, with Ogdensburg farmer Blake Gendebien competing with Lake Placid restaurant owner Stuart Amoriell and democratic socialist-candidate Maylon Haller.

With Gendebien holding a sizable financial advantage in the race, and pocketing the endorsements of five county Democratic committees, the St. Lawrence farmer is attempting to cement his status as perceived frontrunner for his party’s primary June 23.

When Hewitt suspended his campaign March 27, he cited the daunting fiscal disadvantage he faced in opposing Gendebien, who had $2.2 million in campaign cash on hand at the end of 2025, with Hewitt reporting $119,936 in the bank at the end of last year.

Neither Amoriell or Haller met the $5,000 threshold in 2025 to report campaign contributions to the Federal Election Commission, though Amoriell noted last week that his campaign began at the end of last year and he’s been fundraising in earnest this spring.

Lake Placid restaurateur and tech entrepreneur Stuart Amoriell says that until recently he was an independent. He is now running for the Democratic nomination for New York’s 21st Congressional District. (Gazette photo — Peter R. Barber)

All three candidates in the race are political neophytes in the middle of their first campaign for public office.

In an interview Wednesday, Gendebien declined to pronounce himself the clear frontrunner.

“We’ve been working hard since day one to run a strong, grassroots campaign to win this seat and deliver for everybody in the North Country,” he said.

Gendebien, 49, demurred when asked if the contentious GOP primary in the NY-21 race opened a lane for him to be the positive candidate in the race to succeed U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik.

“They’ve got a primary that they’ve got to sort through,” he said of the Republican candidates. “People can look at it how they want to look at it, but I’m the type of person who just gets to work and accomplishes things for my community members.”

NY-21 Democratic candidate Maylon Haller. (Gazette photo — Peter R. Barber)

Hewitt, who worked in the White House under President Joe Biden as a deputy assistant U.S. trade representative, said the financial reality of his fundraising deficit to Gendebien was the reason behind his exit from the race.

Gendebien’s attendance questioned, endorsement undeniable

Hewitt, 34, said he came to the realization he did not have the funds to remain competitive on the airwaves or on the ground in a race that spans 15 counties.

“It was the toughest and most painful decision I ever had to make in my life,” Hewitt said. “The reality was that the money was not there to remain competitive. The financial resources just weren’t there.”

Hewitt said he grew exasperated with Gendebien’s absence from voter forums and did not expect that Gendebien would agree to debate him and the other primary candidates before the June primary. Hewitt noted that Gendebien did not show up to candidate forums in March at Fulton-Montgomery Community College and for the Chesterfield Democratic committee.

“Time after time, I felt like I was sitting at the table with the ghost of Elise Stefanik because there was an empty chair next to me with Blake Gendebien’s nametag on it,” Hewitt said. “[Amoriell] and I were the only candidates for months showing up to candidate forums to answer questions from voters.”

Gendebien said last week that he’d consider a debate in the run-up to the June primary.

“We’ll see who qualifies and gets on the ballot,” Gendebien said. “If we have a primary, we’ll certainly take a look at the possibility.”

Candidates are required to submit their signed petitions by April 6 to get on the June ballot.

Gendebien noted he has done 125 in-person events with voters in the district over the last 15 months.

The Democratic establishment in NY-21 has not coalesced around Gendebien to the degree that the local GOP has backed Smullen in their primary, with Smullen securing endorsements from 12 of the 15 Republican county committees in the district to date.

Gendebien has been endorsed by five Democratic committees in the district, with the Oneida, Clinton, Jefferson, Washington county and Rome city county committees backing his bid.

Additional Democratic county committees in the district including Saratoga, Schoharie, Warren and St. Lawrence have declined to endorse a candidate in advance of the June 23 primary.

Greg Bucking, vice chair of the Schoharie County Democratic committee, said the Schoharie party would not be making an endorsement before the primary.

“We usually don’t endorse when there’s a primary, that’s just something we don’t do,” Bucking said. “If there’s multiple candidates, we prefer that the voters decide.”

Gendebien and Hewitt both threw their hats into the ring for a potential special election in late 2024 to replace Stefanik when she was tapped by the President Donald Trump administration to serve as UN ambassador.

The nomination was pulled in March 2025 and Stefanik remained in Congress. Stefanik announced in December she was scuttling a planned run against Gov. Kathy Hochul and would not seek a seventh term in Congress.

Hewitt said that when he sought the endorsement of county parties in the 2026 race, he was told the committees would either stick with prior endorsements of Gendebien from the special election or remain on the sidelines until after the primary.

Remaining competition also political newcomers

Amoriell, the owner of the Pickled Pig restaurant in Lake Placid, launched his campaign at the end of 2025 and has not publicly reported fundraising data yet for the first quarter of 2026, with the filing deadline set for April 15.

“Financially we’re feeling pretty good about where we are,” Amoriell said. “I understand [Hewitt’s] concern, but overall we’re feeling pretty positive.”

A registered independent for decades, Amoriell, 50, registered last year as a Democrat to run in the party’s primary, noting he believed he needed the backing of one of the two major parties to seriously compete for Stefanik’s seat.

“I think we’ve all heard the term ‘affordability’ enough, but my platform really is about affordability,” Amoriell said. “As a business owner in Lake Placid over the last 10 years, I’ve constantly seen employees that move to this area, young families, and they can barely make it a year because they just can’t afford to live here.”

Amoriell said the tipping point that led him to enter his first political race was an October incident in which a Pickled Pig employee from Venezuela was pulled over in a traffic stop and subsequently detained by federal Immigrations and Custom Enforcement.

Despite having a permit to work in the country, Amoriell said, the employee was given a choice of self-deporting or a lengthy stint in an El Salvador detention facility as he awaited a court hearing. The employee opted to leave the country and return to Venezuela.

“He was a great employee who did everything right and was here legally,” Amoriell said. “I was infuriated. It was at that moment that I decided to jump into the race.”

Amoriell said his fundraising efforts were hindered when the Washington-based Grassroots Analytics fundraising firm, which was working with multiple Democratic candidates in the race, stopped working with his campaign.

“Two weeks ago, they said, ‘Listen, we were working with Blake first and have a relationship with him, so we’re going to have to stop working with you,'” Amoriell said of Grassroots Analytics.

The company did not respond to a request for comment on the matter.

Amoriell said his campaign has found alternative avenues to continue its fundraising efforts.

Gendebien said Wednesday he was unaware of Amoriell’s issues with the analytics company.

Haller, 32, does not have a campaign staff, working solo on his first run for elected office.

A democratic socialist-candidate, Haller said his priorities are bolstering social programs and public education.

“I’m not just for the working class, I’m for the liberation of all peoples,” Haller said. “I’m a populist. Not in the sense of Biden or what Trump claims, I care for all people.”

Haller, who describes himself as being working class all of his life, was born in North Carolina, before moving to Amsterdam as a child.

Haller said he has stopped fundraising to concentrate on campaigning, noting he has raised $694 during the election cycle, a far cry from the millions raised by Gendebien.

“As a candidate I’m not worried. The best person will be elected,” Haller said, before quickly reversing himself.

“Actually oftentimes it’s the worst person for the job that will get elected,” Haller said with a laugh.

Where the money lies in the race

Amoriell, who was a political-science major at Loyola University Maryland in Baltimore, said he has gotten a crash course in the importance of finances as he goes through his first foray into politics.

“It’s all about money,” he said. “It’s very unfortunate. The part of the process that I enjoy is getting out there and meeting with voters and talking about the issues. At the end of the day, what it’s really about is spending four to five hours fundraising per day and that’s the unfortunate reality.”

On the Republican side of the race, Constantino had $5 million in cash on hand at the end of 2025 that he donated to his campaign, with Smullen reporting $494,655 in the bank at the end of last year.

Christopher Schmidt is also running an independent campaign for the NY-21 seat.

The 15-county district encompasses a wide swath of the state, including Fulton, Montgomery, Clinton, Franklin, St. Lawrence, Lewis, Hamilton, Essex, Warren, Washington, Herkimer and Schoharie counties and portions of Saratoga, Jefferson and Oneida counties.

The last Democrat to hold office in NY-21 is Bill Owens, with his tenure followed by six terms from Stefanik. The Democratic Party needs to flip three seats in November to gain control of the U.S. House, but faces an enrollment disadvantage in the 21st District, with 215,012 Republicans and 133,688 Democrats enrolled in the district as of February 2026. There are also 135,222 unaffiliated voters registered in the district.

While Gendebien may have the financial advantage and the backing of five committees in the district, Amoriell said, voters may have yet to do their homework for November.

“The majority of people out here in NY-21 are worried about paying their bills and their children,” Amoriell said. “They haven’t even started thinking about the election cycle coming up.”